Southwest Airlines is pledging to discriminate against white men when selecting job candidates for senior positions within the company.
The Dallas-based carrier said it plans on “doubling racial diversity” and “increasing gender diversity” on its “Senior Leadership team by 2025.” Southwest said it will also increase “diverse representation on the Southwest Airlines Board of Directors,” according to an internal company presentation posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Not only did Southwest reveal its plans to increase “representation” and “diversity” among the company’s top-level employees, but the airline also declared that it would “openly” report on its progress.
Despite pushback over its hiring practices, the airline continues to support initiatives that further discrimination under the guise of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
In 2023, a billboard sprung up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that mocked the airline’s “woke” DEI policies. The billboard depicted the company’s senior leadership and board of directors dressed in drag with a caption that read, “Bringing San Francisco’s baggage to Texas nonstop — Southwoke.com,” The Dallas Express previously reported.
“Race and sex discrimination to achieve quotas. Weird. I was reliably informed that was banned in 1964 by the Civil Rights Act,” wrote Jim Hanson, president of the “information warfare firm” WorldStrat and a former U.S. Army Special Forces member, in response to the leaked Southwest presentation.
This is only the latest instance of social media users slamming companies for supporting DEI.
Last weekend, Mark Cuban was put on notice by a member of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for admitting that he factored “race” and “gender” into hiring considerations.
“As a general rule, race/sex can’t even be a ‘motivating factor’ — nor a plus factor, tie-breaker, or tipping point. It’s important employers understand the ground rules here,” EEOC commissioner Andrea Lucas told Cuban on X.
In late 2022, Southwest and American Airlines employees spoke with The Epoch Times about the pervasiveness of DEI in the airline industry and the risks such policies could pose to travelers.
“If you’re looking for a diverse workforce and not a qualified workforce, you’ve got issues. It’s just like with doctors. If you go to a doctor, you want to go to the best doctor you can,” an American Airlines pilot told the publication.
Southwest employees also alleged that some DEI hires benefited from “special-status hiring” and were considered a “protected class” whose members received extra chances to pass required skills tests.